11/12/2011

Career Question; Will the name of my university matter to employers?

but I have been told that some universities are known more for the course than others. Will the name of the university I attended really matter when I’m looking for a job?

Anonymous.

Your observation was true a few years ago, but I don’t think that’s the case anymore. For instance, initially, the only university in Kenya was the University of Nairobi (UON). So, the first set of workers and professionals were UON graduates. So, they naturally tended to favor UON graduates. However, this is not the case anymore. These days, many universities have come up and establish a niche in specific disciplines.

Just a few examples to note, in engineering for example, JKUAT established a niche, partly due to the involvement of the Japanese government in funding the University. Well, Japan formally handed the University to the Kenyan government in 2001, so, I’m not sure whether the university still produces stellar engineering and science graduates.

In Education, Kenyatta university is the most widely known, although other universities have come up, but any employers were initially more than willing to hire education graduates from Kenyatta University.

In business, Strathmore business school and USIU have also come up strongly, although there is also stiff competition from other universities.

The short end is that these days, the name of the University really doesn’t matter, in Kenya at least. Even when one looks at the global ranking of universities by webometrics, Kenyan Universities are not that far from each other in ranking. By and large, the quality of the degrees offered in most Kenyan Universities is largely the same. What matters is the class of the degree, the nature of the degree, and most importantly, the student’s own unique abilities.

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